When & How I Will Die

Not many folks take time to record those kind of thoughts.

When: How about the first year the world celebrates February 31st?

How: In my sleep without any violent act, accident, or lingering illness. Hopefully without anyone who I currently know around since they all will have already died.

Death is an event I would not like to personally experience anytime soon.

Wanting to go a long time from now, peacefully, having out lived my brother, stepson and everyone I know over the age of 30, I often wondered if I could even just live longer than my Father and Mother. In fact that has been one of my life goals. I now have surpassed my Father. He was 56 when he died on 11/07/1962. He died from lung cancer--smoked during the years when every one did. I remember that he was more physically active than most folks--swam & played voleyball at YMCA, walked to work occasionally. I remember thinking that "smoking kills" two years before the surgeon general report officially came to the same conclusion. My Mother lived to 64 and died on 06/17/79. Could have lived longer if she cared, but she basically gave up when our father died. Emphysema killed her and that was the result of smoking.

So now I'm almost 3 years older than Father and 5 years younger than Mother. Since I've never smoked I probably won't die from lung cancer or emphysema. I've got arthritis but that's not a killer. However, as my joints have become stiffer I'm more prone to falling, and that's a risk because I've fallen pretty hard several times over the past few years. In fact my shoulder surgery resulted from an injury 2 years ago when I slipped on some wet stairs. Staistics suggest that lots of folks end up dying either because of a fall or from complications resulting from a fall.

Last weekend there was an ice storm and my stairs became treacherous. I had no de-icer, and the roads were worse than my stairs. I recently got a Ford Explorer Sport after years of driving a Honda Civic, so the thought of driving a new big ass carin a city where winter ice storms keep insurance companies and auto body shops thriving wasn't appealing. After watching news casts showing accidents all over Atlanta, I stayed inside almost all day until the ice melted. Then ventured out long enough to get some de icer because more of the same was predicted for Sunday.

I still have no idea when and how I will die, but last weekend I cheated death one more time.